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Wednesday, 9 November 2016

The Family Tree - a coffee time read

Along the A40, between Stokenchurch and Studley Green, is an ash tree covered in shoes. There are plenty of theories as to why it is there, but no-one really knows for sure. Some say it's a pagan ritual for fertility, or a Romany hex, or just youthful high spirits that have continued down the years. So far there have been three such trees, as one is cut down or taken by the wind, another appears. We may never know why, but against the odds the shoe tree remains, destined to live on in legend, each pair of shoes holding on to its own story. This is one of them.

The Family Tree

‘You’ll never get them up there,’
Tim said. ‘It’s too high.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ Rob replied,
although privately, he wasn’t so sure.

He was standing with Tim under an
old ash tree on the A40. It was past midnight and the moon was bright. No-one
was around. They weren’t likely to be at that time of night. It was just them,
a bottle of Strongbow cider, their bikes chucked to one side on the pavement,
and a pair of old work boots belonging to Rob’s dad.

Alfie had died a few weeks
earlier, and it had hit Rob hard. He was close to his old man, and had been
working for him as an apprentice at his builder’s firm since his 16th
birthday. Alfie had set up the firm after coming out of the army, and he’d done
very well, working constantly to give his four boys a decent living after he
had gone. But he was out of shape, and refused to give up the ciggies or the
full English breakfasts. After a lifetime of hard work and unhealthy habits, it
was inevitable that his heart would give out at some point.

When he died, Rob’s eldest
brother immediately took over the business. An hour after they buried Alfie, he
told Rob he had to “grow some balls.” It was then it hit Rob that all his
protection had gone. He felt as naked as an unwilling streaker on the pitch on
Cup Final day; terrified, exposed, thrown into the spotlight as people waited
for him to fall on his face.

Rob took the cider from Tim and
swigged at it. The bottle had been left over from the wake and had been hidden
under Rob’s bed for the past few weeks. He knew his mum wouldn’t find it, and
probably wouldn’t say anything even if she had. She was good like that. Both
his parents were. They had supported him through all the bullying at school,
all the crap he had been given by his older brothers. They didn’t understand
why he was like he was, and didn’t much like it, but they accepted it, and
loved him all the same.

He felt a stab of guilt. She
didn’t want him to leave, but had accepted that he wanted to go to college. His
life was being made a misery by his eldest brother, now his boss, and he wasn’t
cut out for the building trade. The next morning, he and Tim would be on the
bus to London. They had found digs and would be living together, out in the big
wide world. He had recently got into college, against all the odds. He was the
first one to do so in the family, which only made him stand out even more.

‘You’re a queer one,’ his mother
used to say when he was younger. And she had been right.

Shivering, he pulled his bomber
jacket closer around him. Tim’s David Bowie tee-shirt gleamed in the moonlight,
under his sheepskin coat. He looked like Marc Bolan with his curly black hair
and dark, kohl-ringed eyes. Tim had far more courage than Rob did, walking
around the village like that. He didn’t care what people said and knew how to
throw a punch when it was needed. Rob wished he had half his courage, but right
then, he sounded like his mother.

‘Why are we buggering about out
here? I’m bloody freezing,’ Tim moaned. ‘If we miss that train tomorrow…’

‘We won’t. Stop whinging. You
didn’t have to come out here.’

‘You knew I would, you rotten
sod.’ Tim shoved him and Rob shoved back. They tussled until the beam from an
approaching car appeared around the corner, and hid in the ditch until it had
gone.

‘Get on with it then,’ Tim
sighed.

Rob picked up the boots. They
felt heavy, tied together by the laces and bearing the hallmarks of Alfie’s
trade; brick dust, cement, scuffs and scrapes. The leather was hard, the toes
steel-capped. Years before, Rob had painted “Dad’s Boots” on them in white
emulsion so they were clearly identifiable in the jumble of shoes and boots
that regularly adorned the back porch. Rob’s three strapping brothers were all
labourers, so the fight to find two matching boots was a daily ritual.

At the time, Alfie had been as
mad as a bull, threatening to tan Rob’s hide, but he couldn’t stay angry with
his youngest son for long. Although he never admitted Rob’s idea had been a
good one, he let him refresh the paint whenever it began to fade, and he never
wore any others.

All the men in his family had
feet way bigger than Rob’s. It was something else he was teased about every
day. They’d called him Fairy Foot for years, abbreviated to Fairy once they
knew what he was. His mum said they didn’t mean anything by it, but Rob knew
better. Apart from his mum and dad, everyone else in the family treated him as
if he was a freak.

And all of Rob’s workmates called
him “Fairy” as well, teasing him about his fear of heights, telling him to use
his invisible wings. They were always pulling his leg, sending him to the yard
for “sky hooks” or a “long weight.” He fell for it every time, and the blokes
at the yard would grinningly put him right. Rob gritted his teeth and got on
with it. He knew his dad had his back when it got too much. Alfie would tell
them all to ease off a bit, and he never forced him to go up a ladder, but that
was as far as his pandering went. He
never showed it, but Rob knew he was disappointed in him. You couldn’t be a
good builder if you couldn’t climb a bloody ladder, after all.

Now his life was a daily trial of
ribald comments and insults. Without Alfie to keep a lid on it, it was only
going to get worse. He missed his dad with an ache that physically hurt; the
shuffle of him taking off his boots when he came home, the smacking kiss on his
mum’s cheek, the smell of Old Leather soap in the bathroom. Visiting a stone in
a graveyard just wasn’t enough.

He stood at the bottom of the ash
tree, staring up at the long-reaching branches. Then he bunched himself up and
threw the boots.

He and Tim dived out the way as they
hurtled back down towards them. They had drunk enough to find it funny.

‘I’ll do it,’ Tim said, reaching
for them.

‘Nah. I have to.’ Rob picked up
the boots and threw them again.

Not even close. There was only
one thing for it.

‘I’m going up there.’

‘Don’t be daft. You hate heights.’

‘Yeah. That’s why I’ve gotta do
it.’ It made perfect sense. It was the only tribute he could think of that
would mean anything to him or his dad. He couldn’t bear to think of the boots
going in the skip, where they were destined. He wanted them up there for all to
see, to remember a good man and know that his queer son, who hated heights had
put them there.

‘It’s a crazy idea,’ Tim
persisted.

Ignoring Tim’s protests, Rob scrambled
through the hedge until he reached the bottom of the old ash. It stretched up,
high above him. Tim followed.

‘Give me a leg up,’ Rob said. ‘I
can make it to that branch at least.’

‘I’m not going to break my neck.’
Rob took the cider from him and drank some. Dutch Courage.

‘Daft bugger,’ Tim chided,
swatting him. He was annoyed at Rob’s recklessness, but knew better than to
stop him. He leaned down and made a stirrup for Rob’s foot, then propelled Rob
up to the first sturdy branch.

The thick trunk was covered in
ropes of ivy root, which helped Rob gain purchase as he made his way up.

‘Don’t look down,’ Tim called up.

‘It’s dark anyway, you moron,’ Rob
called back. It was easier than he thought to get up to the branch he was
aiming for. The boots were strung around his neck. He hoped they wouldn’t get
caught and hang him by accident. His dad wouldn’t want to see him so soon in
the afterlife.

‘Careful!’ Tim yelled as Rob stood
up on a thick branch and inched his way along. He wanted to put the boots
somewhere obvious, so people could see them from the road, but not be able to
get them. He didn’t want some little gobshite nicking them.

The branch bounced as he moved gingerly
along it, turning his legs to jelly.

‘That’s enough, lad,’ he heard
his dad say. Wind blew through the leaves, making them flutter and rattle.

Reaching up, he hooked the boots
firmly over another sturdy bough, round and around so they couldn’t be blown
off or knocked down.

Just before he made his way back,
he paused to stare out over the fields. The silver moonlight washed the
surrounding countryside with a cleansing glow. Above, the stars travelled
across the sky. One star was particularly large and bright, a planet no doubt,
but Rob couldn’t help thinking it was his dad, beaming down at him.

‘Well done, boy,’ he heard him
say. Rob knew that after this, he would never be afraid of anything again.

Finally, he carefully inched his
way back along the branch, and steadily made his way down. Tim had spread their
coats on the ground underneath the tree and was waiting with a celebratory
smoke. Rob could see his dad’s boots, dangling for all to see, “Dad’s Boots” in
white letters, knocked around and worn in, the perfect tribute to his old man.

He took the cigarette from Tim
and they smoked for a while.

‘Promise you’ll do that for me,’
Tim said quietly.

‘Don’t be daft. We’ll be old and
creaky by the time you pop your clogs,’ Rob laughed.

Tim looked serious. ‘Promise.’

‘No need. We’re going to live for
ever.’

As he said it, a shiver ran down
his spine.

******

Years later, Rob drove back along
the A40 with his partner, Scott. They were on a mission, to add another pair of
shoes to his special tree. Scott held them on his lap, a pair of worn purple
Doc Martins, the thin laces tied together.

Rob and Tim’s time up in London
had been wild and carefree, yet had extracted a terrible price. Over the years,
Rob had seen many friends fall by the wayside. Tim had been last to succumb to
HIV, after a battle that had lasted over a decade. Rob and Scott had looked
after him in the last six months, and had been holding his hand when he died.

Now they were about to fulfil one
of his last requests.

It was midnight, and the moon was
bright, just as it had been years before. He drove slowly, looking for the
tree. It wouldn’t be hard to find, because it stood on its own, majestic and
wide-spreading, yet he could not find it.

Frost sparkled on the grass
verges. The temperature said -1. The tree should have been easy to spot but it
wasn’t. At the Radnage junction, Rob turned the car and slowly retraced his
journey, Scott staring intently out of the window.

It wasn’t there. It had obviously
been cut or had fallen down. Rob felt a
wave of grief. He pulled over to one side of the road and stopped the car. With
his head resting on the steering wheel, he sobbed. Tim had made him promise to
hang his shoes on the tree. What was he going to do now?

‘Look.’ Scott gently shook his
shoulder. He handed Rob a tissue and pointed out of the windscreen.

And there it was. Yet it was different. The original tree had
been much bigger. This one still had some way to go before reaching true
majesty, but it was still sturdy and high, with lots of branches, and they were
all covered with boots and shoes

Rob hurriedly removed his
seatbelt and ran out of the car. He
stared up at the tree with disbelief. His heart soared as he recognised his
father’s boots, a little more weathered, the white writing on them faded to
grey. Nearby were a pair of women’s walking shoes, the ones his late mother had
always worn when walking the dog. With them were other pairs of shoes and boots
of all sizes, all adorning the tree to serve as reminders of those lost.
Children’s shoes, women’s shoes, men’s boots, sneakers and high heels, army
boots, their stories unknown, all there as a form of remembrance for those
lost.

‘You started something,’ Scott
said, smiling,

Rob dashed the stupid tears away.
There had been so many tears recently, and he needed to keep sharp so he didn’t
break his neck. He took Tim’s DM’s from Scott and drew a deep breath. It was
time to honour his friend.

He climbed, encumbered by the boots
around his neck. As he inched his way along the branch, it creaked warningly.
He wasn’t quite the slip of a thing he had been when he was 18, and these
branches weren’t quite as supportive.

Carefully, he put Tim’s boots where
they could be seen by passers-by, before making his way back to the trunk. As
he did so, he could hear their distant laughter, and smell cigarette smoke
drifting on the breeze. He held onto the branch and closed his eyes,
remembering for a moment his grief for both of his parents, and the exciting
dangerous days afterwards, exploring what it meant to be young and gay in the
1970’s before it all came crashing down.

‘You’ve come home,’ he whispered,
his breath dissolving into the cold night air.

After a while, he descended, down
into Scott’s warm arms and they looked up once more at the tree of strangers,
become family.